The Photos Have Arrived!!

OK, so i finally have some photos to match the trip blog!!

This is Dave and i in Picadilly Circus, the day after i arrived in London.

Shopping in Convent Garden Markets!! Typical English photo with a flying rat!!

This is Louisa, we stayed with her and her family in Denmark for xmas.

Dave and i in Stockholm - the most gorgeous city in the world!

This is the cabin dave and i stayed in the night before my birthday. It was hand made by the guy we stayed with in Sweeden and was amazing. It was on a hillside above a frozen lake. The lake was so cool. it was frozen to about 30cm so we could walk on it, it was scary coz you could hear it cracking underneath us, but Gunnar assured us that we were safe!!

This is us inside the cabin

The lake in front of the cabin, frozen!!

New years eve in the Swedish countryside!! it was so so freezing, about minus 5 degrees!!

Waking up to snow on the 1st of January!! This was Dave's first view of snow so it was pretty exciting. This was the view out our bedroom window at Gunnar's parents house in Sweeden.

This is the first snowman that Dave ever built! There wasn't a huge amount of snow, so it was only a litle one! We had so much fun in the snow, i think everyone though we were a little crazy, but it was exciting!

This is us in France!! I LOVE the Moulin Rouge, but Dave didnt want to go to a show!

Our first French Crepe's!! I had nutella and Dave had Jam, they were amazing!! YUM! They are available on every corner and in every shop in between, so i was proud that we didnt eat too many!

The War Cemetry in Thailand for those who died during the construction of the Death Railway (Thai-Burma Railway), including the brigde over the river Kwai and the Hell Fire Pass.

Dave and i went elephant riding in Thailand!! It was great fun, although i think this place was a bit dodge. It was sad coz the elephants didnt seem very happy. I guess that they are protected here from being killed by the farmers, but surely there is something else that could be done. It was lots of fun though....

After we went on the elephant ride, we went to the tiger temple. It was amazing! These were semi wild tigers (they were hand reared by the monks who live here) and we were able to pat them and i got to hold one of their heads. It was an amazing experience and i still cant believe that we did that! We cant wait to do it again!!

OK, so we have about a million other photos, so if you are around anytime and want to see more, let me know and ill get them out!!

Bangkok by Dave

Hi, welcome again to the next enthralling instalment on the Alice and Dave trip extravaganza!! This sees us leaving Heathrow (where the last instalment finished up) and heading to Bangkok. The flight was long, tiring, boring, etc etc, but there were a few good movies on, which helped pass the time. When we got breakfast, we figured that we weren’t far off landing in Bangkok with a full day ahead of us to acclimatise. Unfortunately, they told us that we were landing at about 2pm, so obviously breakfast is a lunchtime food according to British Airways!!

We landed, got out of the plane, and headed to immigration, along the way we got a new memory card for Alices big camera, and then realised that there must have been a mass landing of planes, because the line ups were massive, and they didn’t seem to worry about it too much. There were a lot of immigration counters that didn’t have people there, and the ones that were manned, seemed to change people every 5 minutes, with a 4 minute transition period, bit of a pain, but eventually we got through and picked up our bags. We then thought we’d get a taxi to the hotel, along the way we avoided getting ripped off and pressured into booking “really cheap” tours then and there!! We got chatting to the blokes driving us, and learnt that out of the $30 or so for the hour drive to the hotel (the new Bangkok airport is 30km or so out of the city), he was getting about $2, and then was expected to drive the car back to the airport, get it cleaned, fill it up, then catch a bus back home, all the while with a shocking cold, we were his third trip for the day, not a huge income for a 12 hour day!! It made us very aware of the massive living standard differences between Australia and Asia.

We eventually got to our (5 star!) hotel, awesome place, well worth it, had a shower, with no shower screen, bit strange, made for wet floors!! We were so knackered that we couldn’t be bothered heading out, so we just had dinner in our room, then an early night.

Next day we woke up and headed down for breakfast, this was an awesome spread, anything you could think of was there, fruit, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc, etc. Very nice to be able to sit outside in shorts and a T-shirt and have a leisurely breakfast, with nowhere to be urgently, this was a bit of a novelty for me, especially with the weather!! We finished up eating, headed back upstairs to get ready for the day. We had seen a tour that we wanted to do badly, but the tour company that our hotel was affiliated with only ran it Tuesdays (today) and Thursday (the day we were heading home), so we had to hunt around for another one, this was pretty easy, not through tour companies, but at another hotel, so we booked that, and were all set. We then headed to the local shopping centre, very ritzy, all the designer stuff, at prices equivalent to home, I had to invest in some thongs, needed to free my feet from being in shoes and socks all day every day!! Got them, all sorted, then headed back to the hotel, before deciding that were hungry and needed lunch (it was 2 o’clock by now). We walked down the local street with all the food places and bars, got something, then Al made a fatal mistake. We were walking past a kind of sports bar, she commented “Oh look, they’ve got the cricket on!!” Australia was playing England in the 20-20 game, consequently, I suddenly felt hot, and had to go inside somewhere to get out of the heat, conveniently, this pub was cool!! We went in, but it was nearing the end of the innings (Al got lucky), so we were only there for 5 minutes or so before heading off.

All this walking around wasn’t doing us any good (we needed an excuse) so we went to the pool. We pretty much had it all to ourself, with half price beer, and cocktails, so we were happy, Al had her magazines, I had a swim, life was good. We soon finished up there, and headed out for a bit of a look-see at the markets. Caught the skytrain to the nearest “night-time” markets, that were all closing up by the time we got there, pretty average “night-time” markets!! We did still manage to find a few things, I practiced my bartering skills, before being accosted by people wanting us to eat in their restaurants. We eventually chose one on a canal, which we were later to learn was right near one of the sites of the New Years bombing, you couldn’t tell at all, they’d done a very good job of cleaning stuff up. The food was awesome, we guessed that coz there were Thai people eating there, too much for us to eat, along with drinks (big beer for me!!), for less than 20 bucks, bargain no matter what way you look at it!!
After this we’d had enough, so back to the hotel for us, and tuck ourselves up in bed ready for a big day tomorrow.

Day 3 in Thailand was a very early start. Alice had a friend who had done a tour to the Tiger Temple about 2 hours out of Bangkok. That was one of the main reasons why we wanted to go to Bangkok originally, and one of the reasons why we still wanted to go there after the New Years bombs. We were being picked up at 6:30 or so, so we were up early to have breakfast. The bus got there, with two other people on it, a young couple from Denmark. We’d just been to Denmark (good work for those of you who have been following this from the kick-off), so after a while got chatting with them while we were in the bus.

The first stop was the war cemetery (official name of Kanchanaburi Allied War Cemetery, I’m going with war cemetery, from now on). It was an awesome place, so humbling being there, with rows and rows of headstones, so many of the men were my age, or much younger, the thought of being there at age 20-21 away from loved ones and going through what they went through, was just amazing. There were heaps of graves, not sure exactly how many, but lots from Australia, New Zealand and surprisingly heaps from the Netherlands. We were there for about 20 minutes, before piling on the bus again to head to the next stop. This was the JEATH museum, the acronym represents the fated meeting of Japan, England, Australia/America, Thailand and Holland at Kanchanaburi during World War 2. The museum operates in the grounds of a local temple and has reconstructions of the bamboo huts that were used by the POW’s for shelter. The heaps of photos, drawings and paintings by the POW’s, weapons, maps and other memorabilia really show the atrocities that these guys had to go through and shows how they suffered. There were heaps of people around here, some Japanese as well (who were the guys running the camps), they seemed to go through a bit quicker than what we did.

We then jumped on a boat, driven by a car engine, ripped out of the car and chucked on the back of a boat, with a propeller on the end of a 3 metre shaft!! We were hooking along pretty well, at one stage we went through the joining of two rivers, one was the River Kwai (some of you know where this is going don’t you??) and the other was the River Khlong (we think). We came around a corner and ended up under the Bridge over the River Kwai, this was built by the soldiers living in the conditions we’d just seen, working crazy hours (up to 24 hour shifts). The original wooden bridge is no longer there, only the steel bridge is still standing. It was actually bombed during the war, leading to a couple of spans being replaced, the round ones are the originals, and the square spans have been replaced by steel from Thailand (rather than somewhere else). Heaps of people here again, great photo opportunity, if you could only get rid of all the in the way!!

We jumped in the bus again, and then found out that the tigers weren’t actually open until 1 or 2pm, it was still about 11am now, so they offered us an elephant ride, for extra cost of course. We headed there, and got to go on an elephant for a 20 minute ride. There were a few elephants with calves, really young and chained to their mothers, it seemed kind of mean, but they did give them a rest every now and then. When we got on the elephant (with no calf), we headed off towards the river, our elephant jockey took us out in the water, luckily it didn’t pick up water in it’s trunk and spray us, but then on the way back to the camp, he jumped off and left us to ourselves on the elephant. The rider kept yelling at the elephant, although it seemed to have a mind of its own, heading off by itself (with us still on board and with no idea how to control the damn thing), until the rider picked up a stick, yelled loud enough then threatened to throw the stick at it!! Even then it only followed until he dropped the stick!!

Then it was time for lunch, all included in the tour price, I nearly had an “incident” with Chicken and Cashew Nut lunch, but we got through it, without throwing up that is!! A quick stop after lunch at a viewing spot for a train heading into the Hellfire Pass, or Death Railway, was just the precursor to the main attraction, a visit to the Tiger Temple, run by monks, along with an Aussie dude volunteering there for a few weeks, weird hearing an Aussie accent with all the monks and tigers and stuff.

There were probably 10 tigers at the end of this canyon type area, with at least 20 or 25 “attendants” who were there to take us from behind the rope and take us to the tigers. Unfortunately for a place run by monks, there was only one in this area, bit of a poor turnout, maybe they were off doing monk type stuff!! When the attendants came and got us, another attendant took our digital camera and snapped away when we were lead to the tigers and got to pat them. Consequently, we’ve got heaps of photos of us crouching next to these massive tigers, after we got through the minor issues with my memory card, and before the battery died on me!! It really was pretty cool being that close to an animal that could quite easily kill you, although they were so sleepy that they hardly moved, apparently they only bring them out just after they’ve just been fed, reassuring to know, believe me!!

There was an opportunity to pay a bit of extra money and get even closer, and have a tiger rest it’s head on your lap. Alice did this, and we managed to get some good shots, although she said that they were really only on your lap for a second or two. After that was done, we hung around near the rope, and they moved one of the more lively tigers up towards the front so we could see it a bit. He was a young one, and we got some really good shots with him yawning, massive fangs all on show!

The next stop was where they keep the cubs, we managed to see 2 little ones, although there were so many pushy people there that it was pretty hard to get a good look. Especially when one of the monks (there were a couple here) brought one of the cubs right up to the front of the cage, and one of the attendants (who get to see them a lot more than us) stepped right in front of us and blocked our view, not happy!! We also saw a cheetah here, just pacing around the cage. They’re in the process of planning a new tiger enclosure, so within 12 months or so there will be a lot better viewing spot to see the tigers, we both definitely recommend this to anyone who is travelling to Thailand.

We then piled back into the bus, for the 2 ½ to 3 hour trip back to the hotel. Chatting to the Danes with us was good, but I think we’d both had enough of making small talk, so we were also ready to kick back and wait for the hotel. When we got there, we crashed a bit, it had been a long day, so we had a shower and headed out to get some dinner. A quick walk around the local markets was also good, we found a few DVD’s that we wanted, and stupidly thought we’ll get some money out in the morning and get them before we left. Unfortunately, we didn’t count on that particular stall not actually being open by the time we had to leave. Another lesson in buying stuff when you first see it!! We did manage to get a few DVD’s, and some other things, nothing too important, but another chance to work on those bartering skills!!

We pretty quickly came to the time when we had to head out to the airport, I had to visit the little boys room, and left Al in charge of getting a cab. I got back, and she’d been offered the trip in the hotel limousine, a Mercedes Benz E-class, for something like $10 more than what a cab would cost. We figured it was worth it, riding in style is better than in a stinky cab, and would probably get us there a bit quicker. Little were we to know, but this guy must have been a racing car driver on his days off, I think his target must have been to double the speed limit all the way, 80kph zones quickly became 160kph, getting us to the airport rather quickly!! We even gave a Porsche 928 a decent run along the way, he was a madman, but we got there safely, albeit a bit shaken!!

Once we got there, it was just a case of checking in (due to not being able to use on-line check-in the night before), and getting crap seats, although we were getting used to that. Then going through the usual stuff, getting ripped off by having to pay 500 baht airport tax to go through security at the airport, and the usual security checks, immigration and all that, we were so sick of it all, and then waiting for the plane. Luckily we had Qantas Club membership, although seeing that the airport was new, Qantas hadn’t actually finished their lounge, so were stuck in some dodgy lounge that didn’t actually have toilets in it, we had to go out to go, still not a huge issue, but we’d had enough, and were used to the good stuff by then!!

Eventually we boarded the flight, and got our seats and got settled in. We had a bit of drama as we took off, it seems that one of the flight attendants forgot to latch a toilet door, so as the nose of the plane lifted up for us to take off, there was a massive bang. Now Al is NOT the best flier at the best of times, let alone when theres a big bang just as we’re taking off. Consequently I had my fingers (only two, I’ve learnt from experience) squeezed so tight I’m sure the blood stopped pumping in them. I then had to explain what happened and that it was nothing to worry about. She calmed down after a while, and it seemed to be all OK, little were we to know. As soon as we took off the guy and his mother (so we thought) in front of us put their seats as far back as possible. For those of you who have been on BA flights, they seem to go back a lot further than normal, so we had basically no room. When we were moving around, we “accidentally” kept kicking and hitting their seats so eventually they put their seats up a bit, I learnt that when theres no-one in them, you can just push on the seats and they go up, handy to know when people go for toilet breaks!! Now, back to the guy and his mother, she was old, and he was young, so we thought it was a perfectly logical assumption, until they started cuddling and kissing, bit of a shock, unless he was just really close to his mum!! I’d like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but only because I really don’t want to think about the other option!!

When we landed, it was basically a mad rush through immigration, (after duty free of course), then picked up our bags, went through customs, got pulled aside because of stuff I had for work, then had to transfer to the domestic terminal. We asked for emergency exit aisle seats, but were told that they were all booked, bloody lying Qantas, there were a grand total of 4 people in the 12 emergency exit aisle seats, spewing, but we were so tired that we didn’t really care! We read the paper, a proper Aussie paper, and tried napping until we landed in Adelaide to our families who had come to meet us. It was great to see everyone, and kind of surreal at the same time to think that our travel was over, and we were back to realism of normal lives. I quite enjoyed not having work, and seeing all this new stuff, oh well, thats life I guess.
That’s about it for the trip, hope you’ve enjoyed reading along, we’ve certainly enjoyed our part of it!!

London for a Day by Dave

We arrived by Eurostarin the evening and headed to our hotel, only to find that we didn’t actually have a booking! They had somewhere between us booking and them writing it down mislaid it, we did talk our way around, the guy that we spoke to said that he could give us a room, with breakfast supplied (we’d booked without brekky) but we had to pay cash in the morning. Not sure if he was pulling a dodgy on us, but we got our room, and breakfast, so we weren’t complaining too much.

We headed out for dinner, found a little pub not too far away, on Kings Road in Chelsea, nice beer, nice hamburgers, all good. There was a young Aussie guy working behind the bar there, of course, so we had a bit of a chat to him, he was planning on buying a pub there himself, seemed as though he had all the visas and stuff sorted out. He even had a back up plan of “marrying” a mate who had permanent residency over there, since gay marriages are legal in the UK, keen, but you wouldn’t want anyone back here finding out about it!!

The next day, our last day in the UK, was spent walking up and down Kings Road again, looking at stuff and trying to find some things that we had seen before we left before Chrissie. (Note from Alice: i wanted to shop but Dave had found a pair of diesels which he wanted, but of course didnt buy when he had the opportunity in Bristol. Subsequently, we spent the whole day racing around London trying to find them, to no avail. Hopefully this helped to teach Dave the important lesson of when you want something, just get it or else you will regret it and destroy your girlfriends last shopping day in London. So as Dave may say it was a nice relaxing day, it actually wasnt, and would hve been much nicer if i had been able to acually do some shopping!)Not much to report here either, nice relaxing day, before we headed out to Heathrow, to go through the usual stuff again.

We’d actually left a couple of bags that we didn’t want to cart around Europe at the hotel we stayed in before we flew out. Trouble is, there’s two hotels with this name there, so of course when we got a cab to pick up the bags, we went to the wrong one!! The cabbie wasn’t too happy, but eventually we got to the correct hotel, and got our bags, didn’t even charge us any extra for running around!! A quick re-pack at Heathrow and we were all good to check in. We managed to check-in, but for some reason our bookings weren’t linked, so were sitting a fair way apart. We asked if anything could be done, but they reckoned there was nothing, until the flight actually closed, we got in, and asked the Qantas club if we could actually change, and luckily they sorted it out for us just before we took off, bit of a pain, but we were getting used to little pains like that. Unfortunately, while we were packing, we didn’t really pay enough attention to the signs that said only 1 carry-on bag allowed, so another repack was required, and then we had to put a backpack through as check-in. Bit of a pain, but we did get ushered through security a bit quicker than usual, skipped some of the massive lines. We basically spent the rest of the time in the Qantas Club lounge, before getting some magazines to read before getting on the flight.

Paris Part 3 by Dave

That night, we went on a cruise for dinner. It was the final part of my birthday present to Alice, Capitaine Fracasse was the name of the company. We started just near the Eiffel Tower, although our plan of getting there nice and early to get a good seat kind of back-fired. We were standing there for an hour or so before the boat actually got to the dock, and even though we got there first, a couple of women pushed in front of us (blatant push-in might I add) and got the best table. We weren’t happy, but they were French I guess!! We were told to get there at 7:45 to leave at 8:30, but people obviously took that to mean they could rock up at 8:30, or after and still get on, bit annoying for the rest of us, but not a lot we could do about it.

After leaving the dock, we were asked what we wanted to eat, for mains, there wasn’t a choice of entrée or dessert, so we only had to choose once which was good, and ordered some drinks. We then headed up the river, past the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and a heap of the other sights along the river such as the Louvre, you could just see the tip of the Notre Dame over other buildings in the way, but the views were great. The food was also fantastic, although we had to wait a while. We tried taking photos, but it was pretty hard at night through windows. We eventually got down to the end of the trip, then turned around and headed back down the other side of the river. Good to get a different view, in between eating of course.

We finished up the cruise, then headed to the Eiffel Tower, the aim was to climb it, nice and romantic at night, although it was about 10:30 by this time, so we could only get up to the 2nd level, we wandered around, then headed across the road to the “View of the Centuries”, or something like that, just across the road and river from the tower to have a look and get some photos. Al was getting good with her camera by now, so took some really good shots of various statues and stuff like that, with the tower in the background of course.That pretty much finished the night for us, so we headed back to the hotel.

The next day we got up early (well for a holiday) and went to the tower, Al was feeling a bit crook, so the 30 minute wait in the line was a bit of a pain, then the 45 minute wait for the lift from the second level to the top level was also a pain. This was after trying to find out the correct line to get into to get up to the top level, not very well marked!! When we got up the top, we headed outside, massively windy, and Al still wasn’t too good. She wasn’t really a fan when I leant out as far as I could to get a photo looking down, from 276m up you get a good view, the weather wasn’t the best, so we didn’t have a great view, not very considerate of the Frenchies!! We walked around the top, then went back into the covered section, they’ve got the distances and directions to heaps of different cities of the world, so we were on a mission to find Adelaide, alas, little old Adelaide wasn’t there!! We did find Sydney, so thought that would have to do, so we had to have a happy snap in front of that. We also found Canberra, and I think I kind of insulted another Aussie who was there, by pointing them towards Sydney, and saying no-one cares about Canberra, oops, maybe they were from Canberra!! Oh well, what can you do, it kind of is true!!

Eventually we headed back down, and really only had enough time to do the bolt back to the hotel, collect our bags and get to the train station to catch the Eurostar back to London. This was a welcome change to flying, it was good to be able to get there a bit later, and not have all the waiting of planes. Pretty uneventful trip back to London, nothing really to say about that, but worth it, at least you get dropped right in the middle of London.

Paris Part 2 by Dave

Our third full day in Paris (Friday the 5th), was getting towards the end of our visit there, mainly involving more sight seeing. We first of all headed out to the Moulin Rouge, the legendary caberet founded in 1889. Alice had gone to a show on her previous visit to Paris, so was very keen to get back there to see it again. The same show was on that she’d seen, so she couldn’t buy the DVD of it (they put it out on DVD when they change the show), but there were a few souvenir’s in the shop that she invested in!

Good to see the different areas of Paris, the red light district (around the Moulin Rouge) was certainly an eye opener, and that was at about 12 midday!! We stopped for a coffee at Le Chat Nori (French for The Black Cat) cafe, which was the location of the famous 19th century caberet of the same name which was closed in 1897, much to teh dissapointment of Picasso and other famous people who frequented the place when they visited Paris. Very comfortable, we asked the waiter if he spoke English, he said no, then asked us if we spoke French, we said no, we managed to get around that and ordered a coffee though.

We then headed to the Sacre Cour, a massive Catholic church up on a hill, with a fantastic view over Paris. Theres heaps of guys at the base who basically jump on you trying to tie some kind of bracelet on you, Alice and I managed to avoid them, but there were some people who got suckered in, and probably had to pay for crappy bracelets that they didn’t want to start with, suckers!! The view at the top is worth all of the stairs and climbing, once again, awesome photo opportunities for Alice to play around with her new camera.

After this we headed back towards the centre of Paris, through the Montmarte area, amazing architecture again, so much older than little old Australia!! Again, back to the hotel to rest up, ready for the evening.

Paris Part 1 By Dave

Our first full day in Paris started off as late as possible, then breakfast which consisted of a croissant (of course) and then the usual cereal, yoghurt, coffee, etc. We headed off to the Champs Elysee, wandering up and back, dropping into hideously priced places, just for a look-see!!

We got some CD’s burnt of our photos taken so far, from our camera memory cards, little were we to know that they only transferred half of the photos onto the CD, a fact that we weren’t to find out until we got home.

We also dropped into the Louis Vuitton store, their flagship store, which apparently used to have some huge handbags or something out the front. They need to work on their customer service, when Alice picked up a wallet or something to look at a bit closer, the security guard leaned over and told us in no uncertain terms that you weren’t allowed to touch the display, dunno how you’re supposed to get a closer look at things if you can’t pick them up, but they are French I guess!! What made it worse was that there was already someone there who had picked something up and was looking at it, consequently Louis Vuitton aren’t on our Christmas card list anymore!!

Renault had a shop open along here with a few cars and a Formula 1 car, pretty interesting to see, although there were so many people there it was hard to get a good look.

We eventually got up to the Arc de Triomphe Du Carrousel which was errected by Napoleon to celebrate his battlefield successes of 1805. The top of teh Arc used to be home to the ancient Greek sculpture 'The Horses of St Mark's' which Napoleon 'borrowed' from St Mark's in Venice, but returned after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815!! It now has a two-wheeled chariot drawn by 4 horses on the top (added in 1828) which celebrates Napoleon's dopwnfall!! The Arc is set in teh middle of the Jardin du Carrousel which is basically a roundabout full of crazyFrench drivers with a death wish!! For those that don’t know, apparently your insurance is null and void on the car if you have an accident there!! Plus you have to give way to people coming onto the roundabout, bit different to the rules back in Australia, although quite similar to the way some Adelaide drivers actually treat roundabouts back at home!!

We headed back down the other side of the street dropping into a few places, with much friendlier people working in there!! We had a baguette for lunch, we were in Paris after all!! Very nice, and got some French pastries as well, also very nice!! We stopped and had a coffee to recharge for a bit, then hit the Rue de Rivilie, a shopping strip that was a bit more realistic, very touristy though, but good to see none the less.

The next stop was the Cathedral De Notre Dame De Paris, amazing old place, although you’d think people could be a bit more respectful inside, after you’ve gone past numerous signs saying no photographs (pictorially, so easy to understand), to not stand there and blatantly take photos while they’re holding a service! Translated to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, Notre Dame is kind of like our GPO in that distances from Paris to every part of metropolitan France are measured from place du Parvis Notre Dame - the square in front of the Basilica. It was actually really cool, we flucked it with our timing so there was actually a catholic service going on with singing and everything. It was really cool to see, although being that it was in another language (i dont even think it was in French) we didnt really understand much!! Amazing to see all the old architecture, and to read some of the history associated with this place, good to also see how the French hold their mass, we can now say we’ve been to a church service in the Notre Dame!!

We then headed back towards the hotel, stopping for dinner at an American restaurant. It was good to have a nice big burger, with a nice big beer (for me, Diet Coke for Al) for dinner after a fair bit of walking for the day. Then headed back to the hotel for a good sleep, after a long day, we were both very ready for sleep!!

The next day (Thursday the 4th), we headed to the Louvre in the morning, well probably midday by the time we got there, we were on holiday after all!! The sun was out, with a bit of wind blowing clouds around, so we got some good photos out the front with the big glass pyramid, very weird seeing something that modern in the middle of such history. The line ups to get into the museum were massive, as per usual, so we saw as much as we could, then moved on, via another baguette for lunch, to the Hotel des Invalides, and the Army Museum. This is where Napolean’s Tomb is, we went through the shop there, and then headed to the Tomb, only to find out that we had to go back to where we were before to get a ticket. We couldn’t really be bothered, considering we wouldn’t have had much time in there before it closed after lining up for the tickets.

We headed back to the hotel, grabbing a chocolate éclair each (well i had a coffee éclair and Al had a chocolate éclair ), have to get the real French feeling, very very nice, although very rich, wouldn’t have wanted it to be to much bigger! Dropped off the camera, then headed to Galleries Lafayette, a big shopping centre, spread over a couple of blocks with an absolutely awesome Christmas decoration in the big centre dome area. Very nice area, although reasonably similar to shopping centres back at home, guess it’s hard to do too much with shops isn’t it!?!

We managed to find an internet café, checking emails from home, and checking up on bombs that had been let off in Bangkok on New Years, we were scheduled to stop in Bangkok on the way back to Australia, so needed to check out what was happening there and decide whether to keep heading there or not. In the end we decided that we would still go there, just try and stay vigilant and all that kind of thing. Not sure what we’d pick up, but we made it home OK.

We tried searching out some Italian food, we’d both been hanging out for a good pasta or something like that since we’d been travelling, but hadn’t managed to find anything decently priced. We just headed back to the hotel, only to find out that directly across the road had awesome pizza, pasta, etc. Just what the doctor ordered!

Onto Paris! By Dave

We had to catch a bus for an hour or so from Stockholm to the airport to go to France, so we had to get up reasonably early (for a holiday anyway!) to have breakfast, get to the bus station and find our bus. We just managed to sneak on to the bus, there were a few people heading to the airport, I think we were in the last 5 or so to get on, so the bus was jam-packed. During this bus ride we saw a moose cruising through a paddock just near the motorway, they are massive, and kind of dopey looking, although the way it was running with it’s head bobbing all over the place probably didn’t help!! Awesome to see, although it was a very quick look out the bus window.

Eventually got to the airport, RyanAir have a habit of flying out of smaller airports an hour or so out of main cities, cheaper I suppose! We had to pay a bit of excess baggage, but even with the buses, and baggage, the flights were still cheap. We had a bit of spare Swedish Kroner, so spent it on some souvenirs and a bit of food, unfortunately the chocolates that we got there, that we thought were Scandinavian only, seemed to pop up regularly in airports from here until Australia!!

It was a pretty uneventful flight got us to Beauvais, about 80km out of Paris, where we had to catch another bus for an hour or so to get in to our hotel, and then catch the Metro (very similar to the London tube) to get close enough to our hotel to walk! During the bus trip into Paris, we had to suspend a game that Alice picked up during her previous trips to Europe, similar to “Punch Buggy”, where you punch the other person when you see a VW Beetle, but with smart cars rather than Beetles. Alice was a bit upset when I got the upper hand (well and truly, might I add!!), so demanded that we suspend the game. She’ll say it was due to me cheating, but I just had the window seat!!

The view of Paris as we drove in on the bus (other than smart cars), was pretty unspectacular (especially after being in transit for about 4 hours or so), until the Eiffel Tower popped into view, amazing (for me, this is Dave writing!) to see something so recognisable suddenly there and dominating the skyline.

We eventually found the hotel, which was in a nice small, quiet street, looking out the window we could see the beam of light from the top of the Eiffel Tower, although you can probably see this from most areas of Paris!! We went out for a bit of a walk to find some food, ended up at what we thought would be a dodgy Chinese place heating food up in a microwave, but it was actually pretty good. We spent a fair bit of time walking around (about 2 hours all up), eventually ending up at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and with it sparkling for 10 minutes every hour. Very spectacular, well worth the walk, Alice had forgotten her big camera, but we still got some good shots of it, in between being hassled to buy souvenirs, illegally under the tower. We stayed there for about an hour or so, then headed back to the hotel to bed.

Edsbyn with Gunnar!

We had an early start to get to Gunnar's sister's house in Gavle for lunch on our way to Edsbyn. A quick driving tour of Stockholm and then north to Gavle. We met Orsa (Gunnar's sister), her husband Henrik and their 3 kids Carl, Bjorn and Sarah. Orsa cooked us up a massive meal of chicken, rice, salad, bread, followed by sweets of ice cream and almond cookies. It was delicious and just what we needed after our morning of driving. Quick coffee, then we were off to continue the journey.

We got to Edsbyn and went to Gunnar's parents house which is where we were going to be staying while there. They were very welcoming and made us some gingerbread cookies (another Nordic specialty) and got us to try a special Swedish drink called Glugg. It is served warm and was like mulled wine (so think hot red wine and its similar to that!!) i thought it was terrible, but they seem to enjoy it!!

It was decided that Dave and i would spend our first night in the cabin. Gunnar and his dad (Rolf) hand built a 14m2 wooded cabin out on their property near a large lake. It is miles away from all civilisation and is amazing. I took about a million photos so you will see just how wonderful it was. Gunnar's mum was really worried about me staying there because I'm a city girl, but i don't think she realised how tough they breed us down in Australia!! We made up a pack for food, water, torches, sleeping bags and pillows and set off. The original plan was that we would ski there, but because this is the mildest winter on record so there is no snow so we drove! easier, but definitely more boring!! The cabin was pretty freezing when we got there but we put the fire on straight away and it warmed up pretty quickly. There is no electricity there, so it was all about the fire! Gunnar left us after dinner so it was just me and Dave and the animals! Last winter Gunnar said he found wolf tracks on the porch of the cabin, and back in about 2000 i think it was, they saw a massive bear walking past while they were inside having coffee!! Dave and i had no exciting encounters with any wildlife though, i was disappointed!! We had a great sleep although it had got quite cold by the time we woke up as the fire had gone out. Didn't take long for Dave to fix the situation though and we were having breakfast in the warmth in no time!! We had an amazing view from the loft window as well because the sun doesn't fully come up in winter, its like sunrise pretty much all the time, maybe a little brighter. So there was mist and the sun peaking through the trees and silence, bliss!!

It was also my birthday!!!

Yay!! I was very spoilt with Dave making me breakfast as well as giving me a gorgeous Tiffany & Co necklace and pendant for my present, with the promise of a dinner out in Paris as well!! Very exciting and very spoilt!! I also got about a 1000 sms's from home wishing me happy birthday or happy new years!! It was strange getting drunken messages at breakfast, but i guess it wasn't breakfast in Australia, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds!!

After breakfast we went for a walk down to the lake. It was completely frozen, you could see that the layer of ice was about 20 - 25 cm thick. We were able to walk on it which was a very different experience, but a great one! I got some fantastic photos which i cant wait to show you all when i get home. It was a bit scary though because every so often you would hear a big cracking noise, which was the ice actually cracking!! apparently when the lake has only been frozen for a week or two, the ice is still settling so is cracks and re-freezes. Gunnar arrived while we were playing on the ice lake and assured us that these cracks were nothing to worry about!!! A few times when the ice cracked you could even feel it vibrating and moving!! scary but great at the same time!!

We had some coffee with Gunnar and he bought me a birthday cake and they both sang for me!!! We packed up the cabin. We went for a drive through Edsbyn and through Gunnar's parents forest. It was pretty cool, but very cold!! Then it was time for lunch (i swear, all we did when we stayed with people was eat and drink coffee!!). Gunnar's mum made us a big meal of potato bake, cold meats, several types of salad and special Swedish bread which is basically exactly the same a ryvita biscuits!! Dessert was ice-cream and lingon berries, which are small red berries which grow in their area and are slightly bitter tasting, but when served with the ice cream, were absolutely delicious!! Of course, we then had coffee!!!

That afternoon was spent on the Internet organising the trip from Edsbyn to the airport, and from the airport in France to the hotel in Paris. We got really cheap flights to Paris so it doesn't land at the main airport there, so we needed to figure out what we were doing!! We also got a walking tour of Gunnar's parents farm which was pretty interesting. His family have been farming the same land since the 1500's!!!

That evening Gunnar prepared us a big 3 course meal!! We weren't really hungry but it was so yum looking we ate it!! We had a Swedish entree which was some type of prawn stuff with toast. not really sure what it was but it was good!! then we had steak and veg for mains (much like home which was a good change!!) and ice cream and cloud berries (another local berry - delicious!) and coffee for dessert!

That evening we didn't do much, watched the Robbie Williams concert on TV and watched Black Adder before heading out to see the town fire works display for new years eve. Even though Edsbyn is a pretty small town they had great fireworks!! We were very impressed. They have a tradition of doing a poetry reading first, then the fireworks. There wasn't really a countdown like we have, but i don't know if that was disorganisation or if they just don't do one?? We celebrated with a bottle of champagne which went down well with all the wine we had before we went out!! It was so cold, around 5 below, so we needed all that booze to keep warm!!

Gunnar had bought some of his own fireworks for us to let off after the main ones, so we headed back to the house and set them off in the backyard. They were great fun and i got to light them because it was my birthday!! Dave has a great video of it on his camera which you can see when we get back!

Today when we woke up and looked out the window we saw everything was white!! it had finally snowed!! yay!! Admittedly it was a pretty small amount of snow, but there was enough to cover everything in white!! we quickly got dressed and ran outside and spent the next hour or so just messing around!! we built a snowman which was so much fun!! in our haste to get out there we forgot to grab gloves, so our hands were pretty red and sore by the time we were rescued by Rolf (Gunnar's dad) bringing out a pair of gloves for me and mittens for Dave!! We threw lots of snowballs and made lots of patterns in the snow and had a great time!!

Then it was breakfast, packing, a quick drive through the town for a look before we headed back into Stockholm ready to catch our flight to Paris tomorrow morning.

Stockholm - Fave City so Far!!

As per usual we only had one full day here in Stockholm so we had to super organised to fit in everything there is to see is this amazingly gorgeous city. I have to say that i was really only coming to Stockholm as a stop on the way to visit another of Dave's trainees, but this really has turned out to be my favourite city so far. I cant wait for you to see the photos, although I'm sure they wont do the place justice.

We had a buffet breakfast included in our hotel charge so we got up to a full spread of eggs (soft boiled, hard boiled or scrambled), bacon, fruit, cereal, smoothies, juices, tea, coffee and a waffle making machine!!! it was the perfect way to start the day!! several coffees later we headed out to see what Stockholm had to offer.

First stop was Kungliga Slottet, the royal castle, which was built in 1697 after the first castle built on the site was burnt down. It took 57 years to complete so they either had council workers doing the work, or else lots of breaks must have been taken!! It does have 608 rooms though so it is quite large!! In fact it is the worlds largest royal castle still used for its original purpose!!

Next we went to Storkyrkan, which is a cathedral where Sweden's monarch used to be crowned. It was built in 1306 and inside features the most amazing architecture, paintings and sculptures as well as many royal crypts, this really left us with no where to walk except all over royals of the past!! The alter is over 350 years old and made of silver while the pulpit is the most extravagant i have ever seen (and i have seen a lot of European cathedrals!!) and was built in the 1700's. All in all it was very impressive but i don't know if our photo's will turn out as it was really dark, but we have some postcards anyway.

After the cathedral we wandered through the Gamlastan, which is the old town. It was the best part of the city with really old buildings really showing how different Sweden is from many other European cities. We were ready for coffee by this time so we found a little cafe which lead us down a flight of stairs into the cellar section (converted into a cafe of course!) but it was dim, lit only by candles and felt very Swedish! Our coffee came in soup bowl size mugs, although i don't think they were mugs as they had no handles, come to think of it, they probably were just soup bowls!! We also discovered that here in Sweden they don't put chocolate powder on cappuccino's. they put cinnamon on instead - learnt that the hard way!! Evidently, I'm not a huge fan of cinnamon!!

We headed along the river up towards a lookout point. We hunted around for a way up for free (Lonely Planet told us there was a free way!!) but failed to find it, so we paid to go up in the lift and got an amazing view of the city from 38 m up. This probably doesn't sound very high, but it was actually on the side of a hill almost so it was high enough to get a fantastic view. I was a bit worried as the lift seemed really old (in fact it was built in 1936 so it was old!) but then i learnt that this lift actually replaced the last lift which was from 1881, so then i though maybe it wasn't so old after all!!! The lift took us up onto a bridge, and then at the other end we found the free way up was actually a massive amount of stairs!!

We walked off the other end of the bridge but instead of going down the stairs (the lift fee was one way!!) we walked onto the top of the hill and found an outdoor ice skating rink and another neighbourhood to investigate. It was getting dark by this time (it was 3pm after all!!) so we walked back up to the bridge on the lookout for a night time view of the city. It looked amazing, all lit up and with a lot of Xmas lights still up.

We went down the (free) stairs and headed back through the old town, stopping to take a photo of the largest Xmas tree in Stockholm!! We then went shopping in the city centre, at Sture Gallerian, which is like an up market Westfield with lots of designers (i bought some cool new sunnies by Stella McCartney!) and along the Biblioteksgatan which is a shopping mall which has a red carpet going down the middle!! Dave got some cool new Diesel stuff in their sales so he was pretty stoked as well!!

Then we headed back to the hotel, grabbing a traditional Swedish hot dog form a street vendor along the way!! We were meeting up with Gunnar (the trainee from Dave's parents place) for dinner and so grabbed a drink while we waited for him to arrive.

We got to the restaurant for dinner at around 8:30 after a quick trip on the metro and Gunnar getting us lost a couple of times!!! We had some fabulous Indian food, not some actually, a lot of fabulous Indian food. After dinner we went for a walk up to the top of Skinnarviksparken which is another lookout, but much higher and from a different angle to the one we went to during the day. The view from here was spectacular, but it was also freezing!! We were able to see all the sights we had visited during the day from this point and it was good to see just how much we managed to fit in!!

Then it was time to head back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our long drive out to Edsbyn (about 3 hours) where we were staying with his family for the next 2 nights.